


Chief Toph Beifong

by theGirlwithtoomanyOTPs



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Chief Beifong - Freeform, F/M, Post-100 Year War, Republic City
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-28
Updated: 2016-01-27
Packaged: 2018-05-16 18:25:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5836111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theGirlwithtoomanyOTPs/pseuds/theGirlwithtoomanyOTPs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Or the story on how Toph ends up becoming so</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chief Toph Beifong

Given the time she spent with Sokka, Zuko, Aang and Katara during and after the Hundred Years' War, Toph thought that she would be able to go about her own way after. Building the United Republic and checking out her Metalbending school made that practically impossible. As was the fact that she had to visit her parents every now and then.

Keeping a civil and respectful relationship with them required effort on her own behalf, it turns out. It wasn't so surprising. They'd conceded to letting her live away from them, after all. Lao Beifong wasn't as bad as he once was after the incident with the Refinery. He was seeing Toph in new light. Not exactly as accepting as Toph would have liked, but it was progress nonetheless. So she agreed she should be home every now and then. Even if they would only do it to throw parties as an excuse to push Toph towards eligible bachelors all over the Earth Kingdom.

Her father wasn't as pushy as she thought he would have been when she was younger. Maybe he's figured out that all they can do is push and prod but by the end of the day, Toph Beifong wasn't ending up as a lady in court. If he could at least see that, then Toph was going to take her small victories.

It was her mother that proved to be more stubborn. The mild mannered and meek supportive wife that Toph had always thought her to be vanished the moment she started the visits. It seemed Poppy would die before Toph forgot her _'proper lady'_ lessons whenever she was in Gaoling. She would always go in an engagement frenzy when she realized Toph started her bleeding while she was away over a year ago.

Toph wanted to walk out on each lesson and lecture Poppy would enforce on her. The talk about the duties of a woman to her husband on nights alone would have made her pull all her hair out. Sokka found it funny. She didn't.

So Toph was somewhat glad to have the excuse to be away for many months at a time.

As soon as the plans were made, everyone dragged her in to help. She played them like she would rather eat sea prunes but gave in easily when they propositioned making her someone in charge. Given the fact that Toph would whine and complain all day, her friends agreed she could take her students; some people for her to boss around while the others couldn't be with her.

Katara and the Air Acolytes helped around the city they were founding. All the while Aang, Zuko and Sokka tie down the finer details of diplomacy with the old governors and mayors Firelord Ozai had appointed.

Toph is better off doing the real dirty work, anyway. She wouldn't have the patience to deal with paperwork and talking with uppity _all-knowing_ adults who don't really see her as the great and powerful being that she is. And they were always going on and on about problems at rates that could make her spontaneously combust. That and the fact that every meeting or gathering they do is too long and boring irritate her before a pin even drops to the ground.

She leaves that nonsense to her friends and becomes something else.

She settles with her followers at the edge of the city, closer to the mountains where they've been taking the earth to make shelters with. Instead of just bending up the earth, Toph figured too much developments would cause their work to sink or crumble with any heavy storm or a mild earthquake. Every day they finished, they would have to retreat back further to the mountains. It was tiring work, dragging and shaping boulders and plates of substance each and everyday and tending them into walls and ceilings and hallways and stairs. She had to make days to train more Metalbenders, needing more and more each day to mold and bend steel under their will. Their work is pretty crude and most probably dull, to be honest, but it was a start. In a few years, when everything is more settled, everyone can rebuild or remodel or repost or remake as they wish. 

The labor makes their bones and muscles ache all the live long day and provide them with dreamless nights. But each day the city population thickens, Toph's volunteers grow in numbers and even if she wouldn't admit it, she was happy with the company.

Toph spends months on end working her teams on creating buildings and complexes for people who never stop coming, hoping for a better life in this Avatar's new United Republic.

Toph keeps her Earthbenders in line. She finds out that there's a difference between being a Sifu and a Supervisor of sorts. Though they all find out pretty quickly that doesn't matter to Toph Beifong. She was more than ready and capable of bossing _anybody_ around. It doesn't take anybody any more than three days before they surrender under her thumb. After all, if she can boss around the most powerful bender in the world, who were they to defy her?

Toph claims to be annoyed by the pansies all around her but her friends know she enjoys every minute of it. Toph just loves terrifying people. Aang and Katara are more pleasantly surprised at how responsible Toph seems to be with her designated role.

She makes sure that she tests each structure before she nods in approval. Toph is there to be the final call.

Despite her lack of visual acuity, it is under her hands that the city enjoys simple architectural design and aesthetic comfort that is normally thrown out the window in the haste created by projects like theirs. She takes what she can from their visits to the Western Air Temple, the Fire Nation and the Earth Kingdom. She makes it a point to learn from Sokka and Katara Water Tribe insignia as she would never be able to stand being sightless and her feet wouldn't last a minute in that freezing cold. Katara lets her study her mother's bethrotal necklace for hours and she runs her fingers over it until she has it well memorized. Sokka tries his best to carve the common Water Tribe symbols and writings for her on the ground. Even blind, Toph knows Sokka's artistic skills aren't as good as he'd like them to be. She asks Water Tribe refugees and immigrants for corrections long after Sokka has gone instead.

It is under her hands that the littlest of details (bad fixtures, crumbly ceilings, loose footholds) are fixed. It is under her watch that the their construction breathes life. Under her guidance, the city starts to take shape. It is under her feet, that this city is born.

Aang and Zuko will get the credit of founding this city and Toph won't get that spotlight. She doesn't care, really. She was the greatest Earthbender in the world and everyone will know it.

**Author's Note:**

> yes, yes, I've got a lot of work pending. I knowwww. But I can't stop posting these ones.


End file.
